HC Deb 13 June 2003 vol 406 c1115W
Mr. McNamara

To ask the Secretary of State for Defence what recent research he has commissioned into the psychological profiles of new recruits to the Army. [118955]

Dr. Moonie

It is already the Army's practice to build up a personal profile of an individual during the recruiting and selection process, to better assign that individual to an appropriate career employment group. Action is in hand to allow existing civilian medical records to be made available to the Army medical authorities at an early stage of training to allow more thorough medical/psychological screening to help reduce the incidence of injury and failure in training. The Army has recently evaluated a number of commercial tests of motivation and personality, but the results were inconclusive. However, a longer-term three-year research project is in the planning stage to identify a suitable test or tests.